The Legacy of the Lost Hope
A Short story by C. David Goodall
Published on Smashwords.com by C. David Goodall
Copyright 2012 C. David Goodall
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The dust flowed in the wind, red ferrous material choked the air. An orange hue was painted across the skyline and the clouds held back the torrential weather within them. Cybernetic tendrils raked up a clump of the soil and a spectral analysis determined the materials. Silicates and a variety of iron based compounds were the primary atom structures making up this world’s loose sandy crust. Statistical data mapped the surrounding terrain, the mountain ranges rose into unusual spires, craters formed from asteroid impacts. All of this data projected and overlapped itself through the bionic eyes of the Surveyor. She stood ready with her exploratory team of Analysis drones.
Each one of the mechanical thralls took samples to study this rocky planet further. It had been notified as an oddity by expedition forces. Sulphuric scents poisoned the air of a world thought to have died from a scouring event that had happened many millennia ago. As such, the curiosity of an unprecedented event attracted the attention of the newly founded Consortium. One lowly transport vessel, a relic brought back from overuse, glided through the smog of sulphuric acid clouds. Roars thundered from overworked engines, as they were compensating for the ship’s adjustment in its angle of descent.
Landing thrusters helped the feet to come to rest comfortably on the loose soil. The hull radiated with a mild heat and a rotten egg quality, not that it mattered to the surveyor or her accompaniment of drones. The rear hatch of the relic opened into a ramp, leading to a cramped compartment without benches or any form of discernable seating as it was more designed for cargo transport than shuttling people to and from the surface of planets. As a second and equally used transporter landed, the augment ordered her mechanical minions to take residence there. Even with the implants overriding her adrenaline levels, she knew she wouldn’t cope with claustrophobia and having to be packed up into one small room with five bulky reconnaissance drones. Through the radio channel came the binary gibberish and synthesised voice of the Expeditionary leader, Volg Kidd. “Sallyn, what is there to report of this oddity?” Sallyn replied in a similar synthesised voice. “Atmospheric pressures match that of Mars, a mild difference of +0.0176% density and rising. Primary surface material contains 38.90825% Iron oxide, 17.314% Sulphates and a high quantity of Silicon compounds. Precipitation appears to mainly be Sulphuric acids and a mild percentage of Water.” “Any Indication of why or how this world has been reactivated?” “None at this point in time, but perhaps the fossils collected will tell us something.” “Fossils? Of what origin?” “Unknown. Further investigation is needed. Some finds appear to have suffered severe bone distortions.”
Shudders from the engaging thrusters echoed throughout the ship. Sallyn curled into a ball as the craft took off, she prayed to the engines and the pilot for guidance and protection. The human part of her implant ridden brain was still irrational as it was before joining the tutorship of Volg. When the engines kicked in, she was not settling down well, her body lost any notion of movement. It didn’t help that the lights of this vessel weren’t working properly. Meanwhile her motley crew of customised drones slumbered until reactivation was necessary.
Turbulence rocked the already unsteady Sallyn for seconds until the inertia and turbulence faded away entirely. Knocking on the door to the control room, she wanted to talk to somebody but realised the pilot was another drone, emotionless and brain-dead, one that was not of any use in a conversation. As the door slid open, it revealed a compartment taken up with a pilot and the controls of the transport craft. Through acid scarred windows of the cockpit, Sallyn watched as the sky changed from orange to a sparkling black backdrop. Dancing in orbit were two large objects. Their approach made the objects grow even larger.
The first was the familiar sight of the expedition craft as its dull grey hull reflected in the sunlight while its dark side glimmered with a blue haze. Flanking the vessel, veiled behind its shadow was another starship, shaped from what could be seen as a submersible with everything pretty much reversed. Sallyn’s cybernetic eyes automatically scanned and highlighted the approximate outlines of the unidentified entity before them.
As data poured into her mind and the vessel’s schematics spun in a three dimensional presentation into the optic processing lobes of her brain, she saw that the space dwelling vehicle in question was a Sun Tzu patrol ship. Even so, for a patrol ship it was still dwarfing the expedition vessel by a factor of two at least. Naturally the tech within her began to analyse the Volg’s ship when she thought about it. Rolling her eyes, Sallyn had to sit through another presentation about the Columbus Generation Explorers and how those were soon rendered obsolete when artificial gravity pads were invented, in addition to the upgraded EM shielding emitters of today.
Static growled through the speakers momentarily. Bursting out next were submission orders in binary format with infiltrating subroutines reprogramming the drone pilot to slow the course speed and redirect the transport to the Sun Tzu class patrol ship. Even Sallyn was barely maintaining control as her augmentations started to become infected by the virulent malware. Synaptic and bodily rejection inhibitors were afflicted, her body was aflame with sensory overloads while subconsciously her body realised it was infested with bio-mechanical intruders.
Once the searing pain from the reprogramming procedure had finished, the augmented components began to remember their purposes. Those five seconds were some of the most painful of her life. While she recuperated, she felt the transporter judder for a moment and her systems went offline for more than a millisecond, interference still remained. A directed magnetic field of such intensity was now reeling in her craft with her special cargo on board. Erratic readings and signals interrupted the normal operations of her ocular implants.
Minutes passed like hours, her anxiety rose to a point where her body began sweating and the urge to rock was unbearable. Sallyn had curled up and cradled her legs, as a mother would cuddle her child, restrained tears managed to escape the ducts in her eyes. Abandoned, alone and trapped forced all thoughts of rationality to flee her body as her claustrophobia conquered the mind.
Squeaks and squeals echoed through the hull, soon after that ordeal the vehicle shuddered. Slams of locking mechanisms and gripping tools’ echoes rippled through the air. Pitch black shrouded the room and memories embedded within her mind flooded back. Fire, smoke, charred bodies started flashing within her head and forced Sallyn to rock herself in a vain attempt to comfort the child within.
When the lights flickered back into full illumination, the rear hatch opened. Air pressure returned to an earth like level, with the influx of air came dozens of torch lights mounted on turtle head shaped helmets. ‘Consortium goons’ she thought until one of them lifted their weapons at her. Through the radio inside her ear she heard one of them. “Think again, bitch!” The soldier marched to her and rammed the butt of their weapon into her temple. System error messages and crackling clouded her eyes as well as flooding her ears for those last milliseconds before the body could shut down completely.
System reboot and corruption check screens began processing as Sallyn’s eyes were waking again; she needed to open them now. Minor damage reports flared up pointing to a contusion on her right temple. The cold floor was uncomfortable, glaring halogen lights near enough exterminated the shadows lurking in the room. It was a simple construct, close to the perfect cube as machines of the day could manufacture. 2 metres by 2 metres by 2 metres, with a tolerance of +/- 0.1%, surface imperfections down to nanometres tolerance.
“Stop analysing the room and prepare to be processed.” The voice boomed as it disrupted the silence and her subconscious scanning of the prison. Around her, walls thundered as machines outside the room activated. Light peered through growing cracks in the wall, that same wall was now lowering into a drawbridge. Once the mechanism aligned with the catwalk, the walls began to speak again. “Run and we’ll switch off the artificial gravity.” She rolled her eyes while getting to her feet, not exactly feet but at least she could always adapt them to better suit her environment. Then it came to her, she didn’t need to worry about the lack of gravity, her logic engines soon butted into her thought processes. Why did she need to run? What would be the point? She hadn’t committed a crime, far from it, the permits and legal documents were thoroughly checked with a fine comb as the old saying went.
Time ebbed ever onward, the more time passed, the more dust particles were being counted over and over. Shadows soon shrouded the dust, making them all but invisible. Marching down the catwalk were bulky humanoid figures, each subtly swayed from side to side as they thundered in two columns along the two metre wide walkway. Recognised by the internal database due to their blocky shapes and the bevelled edges were the mark 7 exoskeleton combat armour, also known as MATECAs for short. Separator cutting pistols were holstered but ready to draw if she became hostile. She knew they were medium range cutting lasers, designed to sever limbs or ignite enemies in flames.
Sallyn watched as the first MATECA soldier twitched his hand while it was near the holstered pistol. Either it was nervous or it was testing her, she certainly didn’t like where this was going.
“You’re coming with us Augment! Otherwise you’ll give me some satisfaction with my work.” “Commander?” “I don’t care about their kind, they gave up any human rights when they became things. Hell it doesn’t even have a mouth, just that triangular thing on it to allow it to breathe.” The commander’s head glued its gaze towards Sallyn after speaking to its subordinate until it turned away, marching down the corridor made by the handful of troops whom escorted the sort of technophobe.
Computations and statistics providing situational escape routes all pointed to one conclusion, escape would terminate her existence. After the final inspection of the holding room, Sallyn succumbed and said “Take me to your debriefing room.” Chatter over the transmission networks was immediately flooding the sensors as she walked beyond the smooth slabs of the connection depriving holding cell. As the MATECAs turned around and thundered along the crisscrossed steel coated nanofibre bridge, one lingered to gesture with its head. The message given by the being in the scrap was ‘follow me’ to which Sallyn obeyed. Doors slid open at the end of the catwalk to reveal a narrow corridor dimly lit by fading LED cables.
It seemed to be a mere extension of the holding room’s walkway, which was before more tunnels branched off to bore their way through the body of the starship. Sallyn found the column of soldiers in their exoskeletons had to double over in order to navigate the capillaries and arteries. Onboard operating systems started to interact with her augmentations to provide a layout of the deck she was on, including the red track dictating where she is supposed to go. In comparison to Volg’s ship, this one is far easier to work around as it used artificial gravity plates for floor boards instead of reliant upon centrifugal forces.
Minutes of walking later, the escorts led Sallyn to the access lift. The leader was obviously finding it difficult to hide its hatred for her as the body language became more and more aggressive with subtle clenches of its fists along with the lowering of its head ready to ram its helmet into her. Heavenly blue tinted lights emanated from an upper deck, their inviting appeal led to Sallyn ignoring the rage filled body language of the lead soldier. Ascending the divinely ladder to the command decks, she found the hum of machines and engines relaxing, reaching the top she was met by a helping hand.
“Forgive my ranking security officer, he hasn’t forgiven the events of the Pollux revolt. Even I have a few parts of my past rooted with some hatred over that period of time. Apologies for the rambling, Captain Dallus and you are?” “Amber Sallyn, subordinate Archaeologist to Professor Volg Kidd. We have full licences and documents to visit this site, procure samples in addition to any reasonable hypothesis that can explain the phenomena occurring on this planet.”
One of the semi sentient drones, assisting with piloting the vessel, delivered a glass tablet to Captain Dallus’ hands. Fingers swiped the tablet vigorously through pages and pages of bureaucratic authorisations to finally arrive at a signature. Initially the screen lit up green for several seconds until a red light illuminated the features of Dallus’ face. “I’m sorry, you are now officially under my jurisdiction and I am confiscating both your research and Professor Kidd’s vessel.”
“By who’s authority?”
“It has been revoked by the Consortium counsel of galactic investigation.”
“Show me!” She barked. He huffed with a contempt ridden expression while handing the tablet to her. Snatching it from his hands with a scowl, the augment then analysed the data for herself and she was in dismay at a sudden rebuke.
Delving deeper into the attached reasoning, Amber soon saw words that forced her to return the tablet to the captain. Even through her glowing soulless synthetic eyes, he saw something human stir.
“You do realise that you and Volg will be brought in for questioning?” “Yes, I am well aware of the circumstances. But I’ll have you know that I will not be considered some war criminal for an event where I was too young to accept the faulty implants.”
“I have read the file, but this is for your own protection.” “And why’s that?” she snapped. “Loo…” “Well stop thinking and just tell me.”
“Some of the Augments had a relapse. One of them you know personally will need to be checked in case their inhibitors have degraded.”
“He’s going to be wiped again?”
“Possibly, I hope you can help him reassemble himself.”
“You’re asking me to help a victim of memory Inhibition for a second time?”
“I know it…”
“You have no IDEA! I WAS A CHILD LAST TIME! You’ve never had to help someone with induced amnesia. Do you know how many hours I worked to care for him before he was a functional member of society?”
“Err…”
“Most of his brilliance was down to me effectively putting the person back together again. We Augments are not machines, we are people too. We are still fully biological life forms with emotions and instinctual drives. The only difference is that the replacement parts allow my brain and body to respond to new stimuli. The only cyborg part on my body has to be this hand, even that is muscle fibre supporting these vertebrae like joints for my hand’s feelers.” Amber raised the hand as dancing tendrils almost hypnotised the gaze of Captain Dallus. Studying his glare, Amber noticed a strange look of arousal drawn across his face.
“Look, Dr. Sallyn, I am under orders to detain you until the Auditors arrive. As much as I’d like to inspect you...r augments…” “Captain Dallus, Can I please be returned to Volg and to my work?” “I see no reason why this should stop the discoveries you have already made here. If I detect any foul play in the meantime, you and your ship will be…” “Terminated, I understand.” Amber then stormed out and followed a highlighted route to her vessel.
The flight back was easy going and daunting in the shadow of the cruiser. Amber’s nerves were on edge, what if Volg was relapsing? Is he going to run? More thoughts like these were soon stamped out of her mind as the organic machines obeyed their programming to inhibit instinctual responses, while sorting through vast quantities of data.
Crates of artefacts were buckled down with graphene fibre cables, preventing the cargo from floating in the shuttle’s hold. A cyclopean drone let its ominous green glowing eye dance around the hold from within its socket. That emerald eyed drone was the only active one, bar the autopilot, it was another of Volg’s outdated machines he kept for austerity and nostalgia’s sake. Like Amber, these machines were orphans given a home on a dilapidated orphanage, working for a being whose former life was completely erased and rewritten.
As the tell tale shudder from the landing clamps juddered the vessel, the cyclopean slave glared at the door momentarily as though it was spooked and it went back to labouring. Unfastening the cargo crate was a more complex task for the drone than the multi tasking of heavy lifting while compensating for the low gravity. Centrifugal gravity was tolerable but, nowhere near as welcoming as G1 panels providing an optimum level of artificial gravity. She removed the triangular Atmospheric converter from her mouth and placed it back in the hold as she could sustain herself in this ship’s atmosphere.
Leaving the shuttle, Amber was greeted by that stale smell of warmed circuits and lubricants, while drones were busy scurrying around the open plan rotunda for a cargo hold. Bright lights shone from the tubular roof, nearly blinding for human eyes, Amber however had augmented eyes. She never fully understood the necessity for such a large rotunda on a ship like this. Even on the original technical drawings, these large compartments were never fully explained. Incoming data streams and exchanges occurred with the vessel’s mainframe AI allowed Amber to pass on the message to Volg.
Hours of information was transferred within a microsecond to Volg and throughout the ship. Volg’s attitude was certainly not one of agreement to the consortium’s decision. Receiving only a brief message was the tell tale signature that Volg had taken a foul mood, Amber somewhat feared his rage as he had a tendency to become physically violent. This round was not an exception. Tapping into the security network, Amber saw Volg throwing punches into walls and floors of his room. It was one of the hardest things for her to watch as she knew elements of his rage sourced from a lack of his past. Often she wondered what it would be like to suddenly wake up an older being without any memories of childhood or any recollection of whom she was.
Amber knew she had to see him in person, making him wait would only exacerbate the situation. Navigating her way through the main corridors of the ship were always confusing. She had hoped to have ascended the correct ladder to gain access to the most direct route to Volg’s chambers. One check of the digital map showed Amber that she had gone down the wrong corridor, she rolled her eyes as she corrected her route.
En-route to Volg’s room, Sallyn felt her eyes drying out so she gave them brief closure. Once closed, the subconscious part of her mind began projecting memories from one particular event in her life.
Spinning amber lights lit the dark claustrophobia inducing room, while a small crack in the walls gave enough glimpse outside to see a whole colony burning at night.
Opening her eyes she shook her head and resumed her trek to Volg’s room. After half an hour’s stroll down to his room, she typed in the primary code and placed her human hand on a scanner. The door made an internal thud like sound, it then slid open. Inside the dimly illuminated space stood the withered form of a man troubled by his absent past. Like Amber’s, he wore a cowl of scarlet, the differences were his trailed off into a form of overalls as well as missing the broad, hard sun cover.
“Where have you been? Why did the Consortium overrule my right to excavate this planet?”
“You should have all of the files and reasons for our project to be terminated.”
“Some minor details, but I feel one is being retracted by you. What is it you don’t want me to see? Is there something you’re afraid I’ll do? You’ll only make it worse you realise.”
She was stronger now than her child self all those years ago. Although he was right, the more she lied, the more physical he became.
“I’d rather not say, Volg. Have you been feeling like yourself lately?”
“Are you checking me for signs of relapse?”
“Yes”
After a rapid backhanded swipe, Volg then proceeded. “How many times have we played this game Sallyn?”
“Too many to know what that answer means!”
“Then you should be satisfied with your answer!”
“More than previous events. So you’re not afraid of the possibility an Inhibition procedure may need to take place?” She then braved another slam of his hand on her face.
“Go to the lab; unveil the identity of these fossils before I am tempted to commit the first act of murder on another Augment!”
Amber knew others would question her why she even stayed with him, each answer she gave was the same, and there was nowhere else and no one else to go to. They were all outcasts on that ship.
Volg was left to his self destructive outlet, while Amber attended her duty as an archaeologist. Those fossils won’t uncover themselves, she thought. As distracting as it was, the thoughts of uncovering a truth to the fossils from the planet were nowhere near as interesting as the fossils of the personality left within Volg.
On a broad seamless metal block raised in the centre of the room sat one of the fossils. Red hues to the soft soil and rock material reminded her of mars. Early scans revealed dense calcium based structures buried beneath the surface. The artefact sat ready to be opened, a tray of tools slid out from one of the walls under the demand of Sallyn’s thoughts. From above a robotic arm dragged a scanner over the artefact, projecting the images in the corner of her vision. The X-ray image unveiled some unusual evidence,
Millimetres below the surface lay something bearing resemblance to bones, they were incomplete skeletons. Two bodies locked in embrace were revealed at first X-ray glance. A brush stroked the looser dirt away from the surface, the artistic passion she had for archaeology allowed Amber to relax. In a mere five minutes the outermost skeleton had been unveiled. Recording began as she thoroughly removed the planet material from the exhibit. “Subject alpha shows signs of intense plasma burns; skeletal structure is anthropomorphic at first glance. A central column of vertebrae is the first to be uncovered within the rock. It appears a lot of the planet material had been melted after the body was burned. No evidence of volcanic activity to date or prior, so volcanic upheaval can be eliminated from the C O D.
“Upper and lower right ribs were crushed, left arm terminates nanometres before elbow joint. Lower limbs and pelvic region were not found on this subject. The arrangement of the bodies suggests they were attempting an embrace. Moving onto the second subject now.”
The material over subject beta was denser and more secure, it was relentless in guarding the secret as delicate tools broke or became blunt. Crystallisation of the rock had been a rapidly caused process, she knew it was deliberate, there were several layers of incremental crystal growth the deeper she went into the artefact. Then Sallyn looked back at subject alpha to check her findings, how she missed it at first was inexcusable, after cutting into the fossilised material the layers appeared. Any human could have been forgiven for missing such a minute detail, she was an augment, it was an insult to all Augments to miss something like this.
Even augments were capable of tiring but Sallyn kept uncovering and making small errors each time. Straining to keep those special eyes of hers open, Sallyn raised a temporary resting post where her subconscious mind took over to run through basic system diagnostics as well as more fundamental recovery routines. Mental projections lit the lids of her eyes with images of a conflict outside a room illuminated with red flashing lights She was wrapping her arms around her legs. A hand abruptly broke through one of the walls, waking her up to a brightly lit room.
Heart rate monitors flashed over her normal vision, warning of a possible cardiac arrest, a second message appeared where it notified her of counteracting drugs were going to deluge her bloodstream until the trauma had passed. As the rate of her beats slowed there was something she saw. One chunk of material was out of place, no bigger than a fist. Sallyn checked the recording history of the external cameras, so far no one had entered, she then got out of her bed to study the oddity. The rock that fell of was nothing of importance, it was what the rock fell from that was important. Grooves on the top side had imprints, specifically ones from a human set of phalanges.
Curiosity got the better of her as she used her feeler hand to investigate the underside of the rock, to find unmistakeably human bone structures. The epidermal layers were composed of what could only be identified as a metallic substance mixed with polymer. Unusual grooves branched out along the surface, the grooves were dividing fine strands of an unknown material between the plates of metal epidermis.
Further into the exhumation Sallyn pulled a solid chunk of crystallised material off the secondary subject. Where the majority of the skeleton’s torso would have been was more of this intriguing plating over bone structures, all of it was engraved with the same divisions between plate and thread. Finally the rear half of the skull was revealed, cables roped their way out of the spinal column and into the main brain cavity in such an organic fashion. It was fascinating for her to see another race’s approach to technology. These two were almost about to embrace each other before death, the fact one was a machine must not have mattered to its partner. Sallyn spent moments picturing what their culture would have looked like without the need for one to control the other.
Electricity jumped from a static charge grown from her tendrils rolling over the surface. Activity sparked all around as a power surge flowed within the fossil. One of the shoulder blades lifted itself open, the gaping maw suddenly vomited a fountain of small metallic bugs. Sallyn attempted to gather some samples, but they fled too quickly into the walls and crevasses of the ship. One she had thought she’d caught had simply cut through the container.
Managing to capture a glimpse of the cavity before the shoulder closed over; Sallyn saw naked and wet slime covered bone ribs inside the trap. The event was captured as a collection of video feeds; they were not transmitted to Volg as she wanted to study them more. Analysis revealed a lot more about the enigmatic body. Approximately seventy five of the bugs had swarmed out of the body as a probable defence mechanism, it obviously triggered when the static discharge attacked the outer shell. Each of the minute creatures were aesthetically hybrids between arachnids and Isopods. Each was an individual entity in style, most stuck to a standard size of eleven to nineteen millimetres in length.
Energy readings showed they relied on a battery delivery system than self generating power but their complexity would have meant that they could only last for hours using silicon based circuits. Then a second overlapping analysis suggested something far more unconventional, they were hybridised between organic components and mechanical parts like the body on the table. She had found a rarity in the known universe, a genuine cyborg.
Some argue to this day whether augments were cyborgs, going so far as to question their humanity. Delving deeper into the article, Amber tried to distinguish between the definitions her implants and the one this alien and its offspring had. She thought that they both had technology implanted into their systems to provide aid with tasks, she soon realised the difference. A cyborg blurred the lines between organism and machine, going against the beliefs of many that any cyborg could truly be accepted into society, whereas organic augmentations were modified DNA strands in a stem cell which were altered to suit the purpose the user required without possibility of rejection. Suddenly, Sallyn had a brief period where her mind wandered from the track of discovery.
Flashes of amber lights spun as alarms sounded, thunder pounded outside the box and gashes in the metals showed her a view of utter chaos. Buildings transformed into pyres as an invisible attacker laid waste to a world stained red in carnage. Footsteps, heavy ones, marched all around her. A little girl frightened and protecting herself until a beam of white blinded her.
She had fallen asleep without knowing, her eyes opened to the Cyclops’s glaring green eye beaming down on her. It stood poised with its arms ready to grab her, while the orb began scattering the green light all over her body. Sallyn caught a glimpse of Volg looking down at her in disappointment. She was not in the lab, nor was she on the flat of her back; she was curled up in a protective ball defending herself from the two looming intruders.
An uncharacteristically gesture came from Volg, he offered a hand to her. “We are both in trouble now little girl.” “I’m not a girl, I am Amber Sallyn!” “Be that as it may, I know I am having a relapse. Seeing you like this is worrying me though, I don’t recall any of your files informing me of you having a previous Inhibition procedure.”
“You should read my files, I wasn’t part of that generation of augments.” “That’s what files say!” “Meaning?” “Files can be doctored and made to hide things from everyone. Even the slightest abnormality can be hidden from those with a trained eye when it comes to reading the Consortium’s written documents. Are you sure you are who you think you are?”
Sallyn’s throat tightened as she lost all sense of reality. Questions started running down her eye in code form, most were simple body function diagnostic checks, one question then arose that repeated in code and she locked up.
“Sysdiagchck:WhoamI?-Unresponsive” created a wall of white type. It kept cycling until a sudden shock to the system caused her to respond with a dull and emotionless “Ouch.” A second harder knock to the system caused more of an organic reaction as Sallyn flinched. Relinquishing hold of that terrifying question, her system reverted to functional settings while her mind still whirred in confusion.
Her spatial awareness detected Volg kneeling beside her. “What happened, what did you remember?” “They were dreams, not memories.” “Tell me about them.” “I’m a child, in a room and the world outside is falling apart… burning but it’s a conflict without any obvious origin for attack.”
“Maybe I should tell you what came back to me. I lived in a community separate from the Consortium. I lived with augmented humans as well as the unchanged. Like any other colony, it had its troubles and solved them in its own way. Suddenly rogue elements from Augment territory gained an asset that was in its infancy. I should know, I sent the consortium schematics for a prototype weapon, something that relied on an old forgotten tech lost to us in the information collapse over eight hundred years ago.”
“What did you give them? What was it?” “Lasers, high energy lasers, capable of melting armour in seconds without the material wastage of kinetic weapons or chemical explosives. Although, they are highly taxing for energy consumption, even for our largest cruisers. They were silent assassins to defend against bombardments and annihilate the most deadly weapons of the time. I found the schematics for a special chemically powered laser, it was powerful enough to maintain its strength in atmospheric disruptions such as dense cloud and fog. Such was my arrogance, that I never thought the consortium would have attacked us. I remember their ships just loomed overhead and suddenly bricks crumbled while glass and metals melted into yellow fluids. No sign of foul play came from their ships except strange coaxial lenses. An idiot I was and shall remain as I gave them a weapon they could use to assassinate whole colonies without so much as looking like they were recording the event to pass onto the feed. It’s where the cutting pistols descend from and they were conveniently given out during the complete collapse of Consortium control over the Pollux sectors.”
Sallyn witnessed his eyes welling up, though they refused to release the tears to trickle down his face. The man before her was no longer Volg, he was someone new hiding in his skin. Volg never cared nor showed remorse, he was only concerned with ensuring the Consortium were happy with his research. “Who are you?” “Me? Well that would be telling.” “Why hide, we’re dead already” “You maybe, but I always had a trick or two up my sleeve.” “Had implies you don’t have a trick left.” “Are you entirely sure of that statement?”
As Volg’s new personality finished revealing enough, he got up to leave the room. “Look, you can trust me and live or you could die here. It’s your choice.” While his body crossed the threshold of the doorway, the Cyclops drone followed subserviently. Bolting out of the enclosed room, Sallyn preferred the illusion of open space granted by the ‘Stargazer’ walkway. Volg studied her reaction. “Afraid of boxes?” “Nope, just traps prepared by people I no longer know.” “You never knew the real me.” “As this conversation evidently proves.”
The Cyclops then illuminated a dark section of corridor as a reaction to something; Sallyn could read its thoughts through the data streams. It had seen something but it had stalked the unlit hallways leading to service pipes. Even extremophiles would have struggled to survive in the conditions the service piping provided.
Scurrying out of the dark corner, limped a barely functional drone. Specifically it was a drone that had joined Sallyn on the surface of the planet. Optic cables frayed and its outer shell was torn apart by minute bite marks. The poor thing had been attacked by the insect drones from the corpse. She could see its signal was erratic, what could only equate in coding terms would be pain as virus code slowly overridden the machine’s processors. Once the being had succumbed to the infection, Volg suddenly charged along the hallway. He was heading to the command centre of the ship.
Sallyn witnessed the whole lighting system shut down, her body began to drift without the need of movement through the air. Realising the vessel’s centrifugal gravity had been terminated; she grabbed the head of the Cyclops to stabilise her movements. The glare of the eye was enough to know the dissatisfaction this machine had. Although it did not agree with the manner in its groping, it showed no signs of rebelling or malicious intent, only the utmost patience for those around it.
There was something amiss though, the drifting corpse of that should have been the other drone was no longer there. Both the augment and the drone rapidly scanned in the near pitch black corridor using infrared vision to detect movement. Now she understood the purpose of the emergency infrared lighting system. Floating towards the direction where Volg ran off, she found the experience exhilarating and the sensations enjoyable. Ponderously drifting through channels of grey lit infrared corridors, gentle pushes off walls and floors as well as ceilings helped navigate her way through the vessel’s body.
After the seemingly lengthy period of time spend adrift inside the starship, lights glowed and the centrifugal forces started to gently pull both of them to the floor. Glistening particulates in the fading infrared to standard lighting transfer caught her attention as they registered as a foreign material. Fully lit, the extinguished darkness had now revealed cuts and tunnels carved from small parasites. What disturbed her most were the hidden rooms now being unveiled, she now doubted Volg’s intimate knowledge of the vessel’s schematics.
One such hole revealed a black shiny material, like everything else, this ship was remodelled to hide its previous form. “What are you hiding?” She uttered while the drone adjusted to the newly applied gravity. Feeling her way with one of the tendrils, she felt something beyond the material of mystery. It was a configuration for a circuit, but it was unlike anything encountered before as conventional processors and microchips were replaced by uniform silicate crystals surrounded by electromagnets. Luckily these components had not been activated as of yet. There was no time to study them and if she did not contact the patrol ship, there would be a chance to experience her last moments of sentience in the vacuum of space.
Sallyn began broadcasting a radio signal while Volg needed to reset the transmitter controls. Bursting a code into one large radio pulse, Sallyn hoped that would be enough to inform the other ship what was happening. What came through in response was certainly not satisfactory. Staring toward the external cameras’ screen, she saw the patrol vessel realign itself so its magnetically accelerated missile bay faced the belly of Volg’s ship.
Her head locked onto movement immediately. Quickly glimpsing that metallic hand was enough to know what it was, it did not linger too long as it retreated into a corridor while grasping something. Pulling her tendrils out of the gaping in the wall, she followed the entity around the corner to a rotunda hallway. Once again the entity eluded discovery. Labyrinthine displays started mapping all of the outer deck hallways as she wanted to find the relic before it could escape the ship. Another sound called her attention to another opening in the wall, this one was much larger, large enough for the thing to fit through. Kneeling down to see, Amber felt an embrace of déjà-vu as a light matching her name spun to meet her. What features available to describe would have been the human shaped head with the eyes of gold glaring into her very being.
Trailing behind the metal corpse was the vanguard probes it had unleashed upon the vessel, each were competing for a chance to climb upon the damaged limbs. It was chaotic to see, as those that clambered onto the severed limb and spinal area suddenly left to allow more to clamber onto the severed regions. Grimacing at the vanishing entity, Sallyn found her focus change from interest to self preservation as the space ship rocked. Sharp thuds thundered as each impact started to tear into the vessel. Information spurts filled her eyes with an overload of information as ship diagnostics reported engine and main power cell failures in the main propulsion segment of the vessel.
Sallyn realised one more shot would severely cripple the ship or worse, she needed to get onto that patrol cruiser and fast. The drone gave off thought processes that signified its intent and Sallyn refused to understand its loyalty to Volg. Running through the maze of hallways and open-plan cabin rooms, Sallyn headed for the huge cargo bay. Further attacks were absent while she declared freedom from this ship as her only remaining option. Heart monitors showed her pounding organ straining under the pressures of the external environment, while instincts of self preservation took over her basic thought processes. Adrenaline bursts were out of control as she followed the map through the winding halls, any normal human would have been panting heavily after that approximate kilometre dash.
The entrance to the cargo bay was before her, all she needed to do was override the locking mechanism. “Amber, if that is who you think you are now, stay with me and help me fight the consortium. Pollux was the beginning; the consortium has gotten away with manipulating people far too long. The Augment forces were never the enemy, the power mad are.” “You’re power mad and you’re going to get yourself killed.” “Better to die a free man than as an empty shell!” Sallyn yanked the optic fibres feeding the transmission out of the panel and used her tendrils to access the locked door’s processors.
Each tendril tip laced its way into the circuit’s optic connectors, Sallyn’s brain then began rewriting the locking codes. Mental firewalls shielded her mind from any potential attacks in the making from Volg or that entity crawling through the hidden rooms and ducts of the vessel. Opening gradually, Sallyn needed to concentrate as the door slowly slid open. Fully open, she saw her transport ship still docked on the floor. The ladder was the easiest part; the hardest was to take the glares of the autonomous drones, all seemingly disappointed in her choice. It would be a long walk to freedom, as she got closer to her landing transport, the glares suddenly switched from her to something else.
Joining the drones in their glare, a swift upward glance behind her, and then another look as what she saw next was beyond belief. That infernal cyborg was clambering along the lights with its progeny in tow. Whatever code was being transmitted by the drones, it seemed to correspond with the emotion of fear as though a superior predator had attacked the herd.
Drones began fanning out from the entity heading to the door controls of the cargo bay. Sallyn rushed to her transport vessel, it was open at least while the maintenance drones fled from the transport in the middle of their repairs. Entering through the cargo hold of the transport, she raced to the pilot’s seat; the drones had removed all of the autopilot’s control unit. Sallyn overcame her fear of the space to take command of the ship via her optic fibre follicles. Her mind spanned the entirety of the ship, becoming an extension of her body. Her thoughts would become its actions.
Repulsion rings engaged and thrusters roared into life to lift the vehicle off the deck quickly to get her to the core struts supporting the cylindrical cargo bay. The target was small but still it would be severely injured by the impact from the transport. For a half finished skeleton, it was fast, then as she got closer to ready the pinning manoeuvre she saw something unusual about the entity. Her eyes magnified segments of interest where the structure had been extended and new bone like forms occurred on the body. A conclusion arrived, the drones were sent out to find materials to repair it. In the moment of thought processes, the thing neared the button. Simply thinking thrust had pushed the vehicle forward. With the pull of inertia, Sallyn had to concentrate, though it was in vain as the button was reached.
Decompression dragged her off target and bouncing out of the cargo bay. Overloading her synapses with errors and damage responses, Sallyn found her mind ejected from the piloting system. The loss of the extension was shocking enough but the view was near death worthy. Staring down at her was the prow cannon of the cruiser, both port and starboard sides frayed as its gunship hatches opened. Inhaling, Sallyn prepared for her last few moments of existence to be swift and painful. Swarming out were the dozen or so space craft trailed by blue hazy streaks.
Heart rate monitors registered results of alarming pulses to the blood flow, while her mind began questioning why she committed the most heinous crime in the history of the consortium. Regardless, she is as much a fugitive as Volg has become. Desperation was her drive now and she knew that she would have to be erased from existence if she was caught. Seeing no alternative bar the planet for refuge, Sallyn plugged herself back into the vessel.
Descending through the thick, heavy clouds laced with mild acidic rain, Sallyn mentally pushed herself to maximise the efficiency of the vessel and it was beginning to show its strains on her. Sweat glands perspired profusely as she fled the assault craft in pursuit. Bolts of light skimmed the transport craft’s frontal screen. As more ammunition darted in front and behind, she hoped the cover would work for a few more minutes as she could try and find a canyon to hide in. The machine juddered and rattled as it worked its way through the atmosphere.
Flashes of blue bolts conflicted with the streaks of yellow from the kinetic weapons fire. As the storm’s war with the ammunition raged to a point, it obscured the natural dangers of the alien world from view. With impaired vision, the ship was narrowly dodging oncoming rocky outcrops as small explosions forced certain sinister shadows to come to view. Instinct forced the vehicle to flinch at each encounter with a high rise outcrop. Unpredictable rates of these near collisions kept Sallyn draining her brain power, she was losing her mastery of the cumbersome vessel she was now embodying.
Hidden from her peripheral vision, a tower of sharp rocks collided with one of the engines and the shock threw the vessel into an uncontrollable spin. Adrenaline made the mere seconds stretch into lengthier periods of time, giving her the chance to rapidly relinquish control and head into the cargo bay. Clamping her hands onto the frame of the doorway, Sally found herself losing balance through the rotations the vehicle was being put through.
The grand slam at the end threw her down to the metal floor, hard.
Reddened skies in partial view greeted her childish self, as her home world was left in cinders. Orbital bombardments collided into grand skyscrapers with mid departing space craft leaving the docking clamps. Carnage descended through the clouds as tumbling ruins began the city’s transformation. It was horrific to see as burning bodies drifted from the highest towers. Her father dragged her in desperation towards a sheltered emergency room. Screams from the streets rang loudly in her ears during the panic and sirens directed people to shelter. But this wasn’t her life or her memories, they were someone else’s, Sallyn never knew her parents as they were killed in a mining station collision. As the dream destabilised, she was left in darkness.
Sallyn then tasted iron and salt on her tongue. No more pleasant than the smell of the atmosphere, until it started suffocating her. Atmospheric converters were still on the ship since her last visit, the struggle to breathe and reach the converter were troublesome enough without the sound of the closing gunships agitating her nerves. Grabbing the mouthpiece after her tendrils raked at its edges, the aftermath of putting the converter on was more painful to bear as her body was flooded with oxygen rich air. Coughing removed most of the foreign elements while the converter forced her coughs to be heard as varying pitched static noise. Thankfully she was didn’t wear the hood, her hair only dimly lit up the cargo hold but it was enough to guide her.
Several slow and deep intakes later, Amber managed to push herself off the floor. Pressing the rear hatch controls failed to engage the opening mechanisms, to soon realise the power unit was heavily damaged. The claustrophobic cargo bay had only one exit, the orange haze from the pilot’s seat. As she approached, she couldn’t help but feel some compassion for the battered and bruised vessel. Outside lingered the ever present storms of the planet as the gunships hunted throughout the sky for the transport. Out of nowhere a great purple wave of what looked like plasma surged in all directions throughout the view from what was left of the cockpit, it consumed everything in sight including the orange haze of the sky. As it coursed its way over the hull of the downed transport, Sallyn placed her human hand on the glass to feel the heat of the blast. The mass heat flash forced her hand off the window, she enabled her eyes to analyse the data and it surprised her to find out what it was. As the epidermal layers of the glass were the most exposed, they grew crystals from the plasma blast. Next to arrive was the shockwave that threw her back.
Catching a stranger glimpse, Sally watched as the gunships tumbled out of the sky. Breaking on the surface, the gunships were partially recognisable as the Stal model 10 gunner, more commonly nicknamed stallions. While the stallions were downed and out of action, Amber got herself up to pound at the window to get to freedom. Hitting the window repeatedly forced the damaged fittings around it to stretch and then shatter. With the loosened window, dust clouds swirled into the cockpit. It was heavy to shift out of the fittings and its thickness didn’t help either, with a thud following the window’s clumsy landing on the planet’s surface, Sallyn was now free. Using the autopilot’s seat, she pushed herself out of the vehicle and into the dust ridden air. Her landing was soft and uncomfortable as stones tried to jab into her back.
In comparison to the previous excursion, the atmosphere had changed and micro tremors were being detected. Although faint, the readings pointed to geothermal activity had been reinitiated. Out of Sallyn’s curiosity, and to the amazement of the study, she saw the readings had drastically changed. Recording her thoughts, she began to reorganise her mind “Atmospheric pressure increased by a factor of 0.5% in one blast of Plasma.” Such phenomena was unheard of in natural circumstances as the only thing to produce such quantities of plasma, were mass coronal ejections in excessive magnitudes from stars at least twenty times the size of this planet’s neighbouring one.
A brief headache allowed Amber to come to her senses. While the crews of the gunships were preoccupied with getting out of the hulks dotting the landscape, rapidly she sought an overhanging ledge. Realising the scattered crews didn’t have the capacity to determine the planet’s unstable weather conditions, Amber needed to act fast. Streaks of light soon followed by the bellowing roars of thunder signified the worst is yet to come.
Burning was all she could feel as a drop of rain rolled down her tendril. The heavily laden skies were ready to release their cargo. She caught sight of a soldier pointing to her as she scouted for shelter. Dashing to the nearest overhang, Amber allowed the adrenaline flow to come but regulated it to prevent irrational thinking. The crunch of the freshly crystallised soil made it easier to detect the footfalls of the numerous enemies giving chase. Heat tingled the back of her scalp, she glanced to see a familiar set of MATECA armour handling a very familiar weapon. He made planet fall especially for her. Pounding came from her heart as the mind’s subconscious self preservation mechanism caught up with her brain’s calculations. Instinct took hold as her body elegantly leapt into a sprint for the nearest overhanging ledge.
Fluids pumped furiously throughout her body. Each thunderous footfall was one more step closer to the continuation of her existence. Ears caught the tell tale patter of the full force rainfall chasing her to the sheltered alcove. More rapid burns streaked down her back, she had no choice but to remove her robe as it erupted into flame. She raised the mass of fire soaked clothing while the rain caught up with her. On her naked skin, the air was warm and tingling and then came the real pain as the acid droplets began devouring layers of skin. Amber held her composure until the rocks above shielded her from the onslaught. Hurriedly she wrapped the robe around her and turned to see what lay behind her. Curtains of toxic liquid disrupted her view of the soldiers panicking under the condition of burning rain. Very few had the determination to follow after her. There was only one whom completely ignored the effects of the environment around them.
“RUN, BITCH, RUN. GIMME SOMETHING GOOD TO KILL” It could only be one as her spine flared with the scalding heat of his weapon. Amber wasn’t sure if they’d heard her but she knew that the instinctive scream ripped its way into the calm ambiance of the rainfall. Tripping over a rock, she slammed hard into the razor sharp soil, shards of crystalline material ate their way into her skin and she soon realised that even here, she was not accepted. Her hands raked at the sharp teeth of the topsoil as she got back up. Glancing briefly, she surveyed the local geography for a way out.
The clearing between the overhanging ledges were going to force her to run out in the rain. Any other alternative meant a brutal execution at the hands of an obvious psychopath. Her programmes within her head spotted in the distance a cave large enough for her to seek some definite shelter. Scrambling back to her feet was the hardest part as she could sense the psycho preparing to blast her with one long beam of fiery energy. Forsaking the cloak, she embraced the pain to come as adrenaline would soon compensate for the damage done to her body. Wearing next to nothing, Amber had her augments help ignore each stride’s worth of burning tears to achieve her eventual escape. It was further than she thought, but this cruel world had other plans as the torrential downpour terminated abruptly as it had started. Fumes rose from the saturated ground, they were getting through the damaged atmospheric filter covering here nose and mouth, Amber soon began choking.
Escape this time would be even more difficult. Thankfully her legs kept propelling her toward that darkness of obscure safety. It would be a nightmare to deal with, but her options were limited. Scoured skin bled slowly as the grazes and acid burns delved deeper into the layers of skin on her human body. Even her augments were complaining of severe epidermal damage caused by the destructive atmosphere, but they persevered as much as she did.
Bull rushing into her most feared of spaces, Amber clambered through the sharp stone void. Blood rushed through her body, delivering packages of adrenaline to her muscles, preparing her flight from the black. Claustrophobia was really beginning to annoy her as it was trying to drive her back to the executioners outside. She must have been two or three metres into the tunnel when she felt the sudden end of the cave. Sounds of water droplets could be heard landing in a very large body of water. Infrared vision found it difficult to identify specifics of the chamber’s dimensions. Most of the room looked black with a green haze of static to it. Shuffling and rubbing sounds on the cave exit behind her let her know what was coming.
Deep breathes and a slow rolling tear before one final act that she would regret. As she pushed against the rocks, Amber leapt with a scream to her death.
Slamming hard into the body of water, her skin ached from the force of the flat impact. Fluid devoured her body, cold to her extremities, but soothing nonetheless. Bubbles floated and tingled upon her body as they sought to rejoin the atmosphere. Opening her eyes, the infrared found light to absorb. Pulses of what appeared to be fluorescent coral colonies shone the way, Amber needed air before she could pursue the entities any further. Using a natural flowing motion to surface out of the water, she realised that is what she resided in, a subterranean pool of precious clean water. The gasp for air echoed throughout the cavern. White lights beamed into the darkness, ruining her infrared vision. She changed her vision again, this time back to regular sight, Amber then began to follow the pulses of coloured light leading away from the bright pair behind her. She soon was able to see the reddish rock below her and realised what that meant.
Diving beneath the surface, she swam above the string of coral to evade the potent cutter lasers. While the water absorbed most of the heat, she could still feel the heat of the gun on the calf of her leg.
Blood loss was starting to make her light headed as the adrenaline fuel ran out and her body writhed in agony as it realised the damage done. Flesh was rebellious in this way. Lights vanished as her body curled up. A sudden thunderous roar followed by a burst of light as the roof collapsed into the pool behind her. Smouldering boulders cannon balled into the pool, clouds of red mist billowed in the lake. Something moved in the water with her.
Currents from the descending roof were interrupted by another, swifter and softer current. Through the murk swam the dazzling lights of the coral. Descending down into the corrupting water, Sallyn saw something she never anticipated to see.
Writhing brightly, the entire colony of corals moved as part of one greater form and this alien being was reeling back its appendage. There was no time to analyse the meaning of such a thing, she needed to grab any chance for freedom, no matter how irrational. As a flat and rounded diamond shaped fluke rolled up and down in the water, Amber swam to grasp it with her hands. Upon wrapping her fingers over the edges of the fluke, a final pulse of light transmitted itself through the serpentine form of the alien. Amber felt the pull of the water, attempting to drag her to her death while she clutched the fluke throughout its journey into the darkness. She could handle the drag but the peak and trough the motion of the fluke made it difficult to hold onto. It speedily traversed the dark waters and the cave system until it eventually climaxed at a brilliant focal point of light.
Dancing above her in the darkness, an aurora borealis swayed streams of pastel coloured lights, spanning across the entirety of her vision. Water was absent from her sensations and it was replaced by a spongy floor, unlike anything else this world hid. Her skin no longer burned, her pains were absent and her body felt cold. Skin rose into minute bumps as hairs attempted to catch the heat and when she looked at her body, it appeared to be healed and illuminated by the light. Subjects of thought turned to an explanation, one she must admit to, Amber was delirious from a state of acceptance soon to be followed by immanent death.
Closing her eyes, she pulled in her last breath and released. System check codes columned down against a black backdrop as they attempted to confirm her suspicions. The augments disagreed with her suspicions as they registered pain receptors were calmed and damages were fully repaired. Opening her eyes once more, Amber gazed at her surroundings.
A vast chamber, buried under the surface, glowed and pulsed with an organic luminescence as rivers of fluorescent light flowed all around her. The current gathered into one meandering torrent of light. It flowed through the cave and unveiled the mystery of why the floor was soft. Amber’s eyes began magnifying her natural vision by a thousand fold and what she saw amazed her still.
Armies of microbial machines constructed the flooring, walls and ceiling inside the cavern. Each was capable of being an independent entity, but all worked in communion for a greater goal. They were flexible yet protected by rigid hexagonal walls flanked by four flagellum divided equally over each side, and each of the cells used the appendages to link each other together.
The unison in which these beings attained was phenomenal. Spectrums of colour varied heavily as they rippled throughout the cavern, showing how vast this colony of microbial machines was. Distance calculations estimated the hollowed out area she was in had reached nearly 1.6km in length and even that was ignoring the thick concentrations of microbes supporting the roof and walls. Some may have described it as majestic, Amber saw it as an opportunity to study. With newly repaired tendrils, she rolled all except one into a ball, the index tendril outstretched toward an outcrop of cells. Drawing closer to the cluster, she studied the reaction, each of the illuminating cells parted way before the tendril even dreamt of touching. The river of light glowed brighter; it could no longer be ignored.
Situational analysis soon speculated at an intellectual presence being in command of the masses of hybrid cells. Retracting the outstretched tendril, she noticed a response from the colony.
Hairs on her body rose as she sensed a malign audience observing her movements. Turning to see the observer behind her, Amber found only pillars of light further into the body of the cave system. Approaching the pillars of light, Amber saw that they were towers of intriguing symbols suspended in the air. One set of symbols attracted her attention the most, a set made of two identical worms with scales and defined heads. They were creatures she had never seen before, Database and encyclopaedic knowledge resources couldn’t identify what they were, but human curiosity got the better of her. Wrapping her fingers around the light projection unleashed a reaction she had never anticipated. A stunning red pulse radiated along the pillar of symbols, forcing the images to vanish from view. Virulently, the red light infected the dancing colours flowing inside the cave and everything went black.
Then a tune on an instrument she definitely recognised echoed through the cave. Slow presses on piano keys followed by a backing of reversed music and suddenly the Goosebumps rose when music really kicked in with the drums. Projected in front of her from a pool of light were images of a control panel, suddenly turning to a picture of blue skies through a window. White clothed human hands shook with another as she soon realised she was seeing a memory. Back down on the panel she saw the hand press a button to ignite the displays into a flurry of lights and symbols. Indiscernible words sung beautifully from a language she couldn’t understand as she witnessed an exodus from a Planet. Out of the huge window she saw other vessels leaving the planet. As the song ended, the lights returned and she felt a fluid running from her eyes to the floor. She had not noticed the tear of joy rolling down her cheek as she realised what she was within. The entity was a triumph of technology from a time before the information collapse.
In trying to remember the event just past, her own memories were being replaced by another person, another childhood. One of the memories taking hold, she saw anthropomorphic robots wandering the streets of the colony in her dreams. As the roots of her old self began falling apart, the lie of Amber Sallyn crumbled. Realisation at her false nature caused paranoid delusions to surface. As she scratched and dug nails deeply into her, the pain released tension. She felt the slow ebbing of fluid on her hands, although this did not sufficiently detract from her current predicament. Her life she was given turned to ash as the lies were burned away with the light of truth.
Out of the confusion one name stood out in the echoes of her true past, Sally Burrows. She saw the hand written words clearly on a book she was carrying. Like the former Volg, the shell she was in, is now simply a disguise to fool others. As she stood up she realised why she was afraid of enclosed spaces, it wasn’t because of the attack, it was a mechanism to prevent her from relapsing. That is the reason relapses occur, many had lingered too long in their fears, the prevention mechanism. When subjects overcome their fears, they overcome their false identity. The power the dark and the confined spaces had over her were no longer capable of taunting her mind. Sally was free and now she could choose her own fate within the human community.
Before her, a blue holographic text appeared, various languages continuously exchanged with one another until one she recognised all too well confronted her sight. “Stop!” she barked as data script and command lines wrote in a dialect so simple, it was hard to discern initially.
“Boot: Sys.entity.rotate:180”
Computers in her lenses translated the basic code to ‘turn around’ and she complied. Receding light unveiled a tall tortuous body raised from the vast colony of cells. Its body pulsed with arteries and veins of light, while a denser and more unusual category of cells formed an unusual yet similar bone structure. Ropey arms built around segmented joints like the ones in her tendrils forced her to look at her own augments to fully understand why it had taken such a form. A face with few features looked emptily at her as eyes of glass saw her as an inferior being and a crest supported by three distinct prongs repeated the beautiful aurora. Behind the translucent skin she saw something familiar in shape forming the skull of the entity.
“What are you?” Sally said inquisitively, the crest of lights stopped radiating colour in response. From where the mouth should have been, ripples flooded the fluid skin of the entity and it responded with her question in a far more ominous tone and more distinguished voice. It had adopted a male tone and inflection to its words. Cocking its head, the being before her then rippled again. “The Intrepid Discovery. Is such an answer sufficient?”
“No, I want to know where you came from and how you came to be!”
“The memories should have been sufficient to understand. They are part of me and I am part of them.”
“So you are a singular entity then?”
“If it satisfies your curiosity then yes, this one is a singular entity for now.”
“There are more like you?”
“Are there more like you?”
“I am the one asking the questions here.” She barked with venom in her words
“I am the one capable of rendering you down to your basic components here.” The creature said calmly. “”You are the intruder here; my questions have a greater validation over yours. If you intend to capture me for study, it will be a difficult process to perform.”
“Were you human at one stage in your life?”
“That terminology has not been used here for a long time. More than three hundred Terran years ago. When my purpose so far was undefined.”
“Terran years? What measurement of time is that?”
“Three hundred and sixty four point two five days. Plus or minus a few micro seconds.”
“That’s very close to a normal year on the source world.”
“Source world? Would such a place be called Earth?”
Her memory files ran through the encyclopaedias stored within her head for examples of earth and she saw the Source world. Petabytes of information lit up her retinas with images of a blue and grey world covered in lights, surrounded by Stations and starship dockyards. Then the alien presence unleashed a radiant hologram into existence. The spherical object was covered with masses of blues, yellows, greens, greys and whites. Topographical data from the memory banks aligned near perfectly with the object presented to her holographically with exception of less landmass. Water levels had risen to consume much of the lowland surface, while much of the colours were washed into grey super city districts.
“Yes.”
Writhing one of its arms to her head, the creature gently stroked her face, soon the Intrepid Discovery embraced her.
“Finally, our world-brothers are among the stars.”
“How long ago did you leave Earth?” She said after escaping its embrace.
“Approximately eight and a half centuries ago” The head tilted and the light spectrum shifted from tones of green to veins of blue. Bathed in sorrowful light, Sally found herself confronted by a very lonely being. The entity was a true outcast of both nature and society.
“What exactly are you? My readings are registering this colony of cells as being made from organic and mechanical based components.”
“We made a covenant of convergence. It was a pact that we made before we even set out to the stars. It was a pact to utilise the power of machines to compensate for the genetic faults and weaknesses of organisms. We would study the universe as it grew and how humanity would have evolved throughout the ages. A complication occurred during launch of the first passenger shuttles. Seventeen of the original forty explorer ships were annihilated by nuclear weapons. And several thousand passengers were killed during the procession. The total number of deaths climaxed at four thousand, six hundred and thirty two including staff and operational personnel. Thankfully the visionary whom thought of creating the magnificent ships had survived, but if forced his hand. In a bout of rage he retaliated with a nuclear bombardment of his own.
Twelve major cities took the brunt of small atomic weapons, originally intended for cracking asteroids, he then renamed his vessel the Lost Hope and departed our system before any of us could identify his demeanour. We carried out the plan and soon the remaining vessels abandoned the system, leaving what was left to its fate.”
“So what you are saying is that your leader, the Lost Hope is responsible for creating the Consortium?”
“From our analysis of your memory files, the probability is high.”
“You raided my mind? Those are personal files. What else did you do to me?”
“We saw your mind was injected with false childhood memories and now you are dealing with the consequences of your true memories resurfacing. You are still unsure as to your true identity Sally, but we can offer you no satisfaction on this matter. The interest we have is in that fossil you found.”
“The Cyborg?”
“Yes”
“What do you want with it?”
“Can you not deduce the reason?”
“The remains of the Lost hope.”
“Perhaps, his model style suggests a likelihood of being the original visionary. It is lost and alone, we need to help it and understand why it abandoned the flotilla.”
“So did you create the plasma pulse through the atmosphere?”
“No, it is an entirely alien concept for us to produce. I was drawn here in the same curious manner as you. To see what was terraforming this planet from a death state, but I was caught in that self sustaining explosion. They have become more frequent as of late and I am running out of time to find the Lost Hope. I am sure in my current state I can escape orbit, though I am not sure if I can withstand another pulse.”
“Then let’s go; I can show you where we found the remains of your leader and a probable site of its vessel’s crash site.”
“Not yet, the Pulse is about to begin.”
“How can you tell?”
“Historically these pulses have always been preceded by seismic activity.”
“How powerful are these seismic tremors?”
Her question was answered as the very world she stood in shook violently for a brief period of time. Stumbling in the chamber, she could hardly consider a world with a frozen core would ever be capable of producing such violent tremors. Even current technological breakthroughs lagged in the way of terraforming. Minutes later another sound, thunderous and monstrous rippled through the roof of the cave.
“It is safe.”
“We can go?”
“Yes, the ignition process has already begun.”
“Where are the Ion thrusters?”
“Primitive concepts, we use a sub sect of Heim theory to develop these quantum gravity drives. The old Columbus Generation craft you used were replicas of the Project’s own ships. The difference now is that we may have found the Lost Hope’s ship.”
“So quickly? Where is it?”
“In orbit, with the visionary. Can you not detect the quantum entanglement communications?”
“Are you saying that Volg’s ship is the Lost Hope itself?”
“What was left of the old colony segments, the engine core is completely new and so are elements of the command deck.”
“Are you saying we salvaged that ship?”
“In such derogatory terms, yes you did salvage it.”
A mild hum echoed in the empty space and it surrounded her. Terrifying cracking noises followed by bursts of light as the solid roof crumbled and sloughed off the body of the Intrepid Discovery. The scale of such a thing ascending into the atmosphere was unprecedented. Hurricanes churned up the loose soil, contaminating the remaining pools of water within the cavern while billowing clouds of rock dust flew in the wake of the ship. Seeing through its transparent hull, she could see the fascinating landscape in a panoramic view, unlike the transport ship she embodied on her way down. She turned to look at the Intrepid’s avatar, only to witness it return to the goo like mass of the hull.
During the ascent through the atmosphere, she studied the movement of the Intrepid from within the main chambers of its body. Sally watched the apparent head of the entity dip down and then rise up again to match the motion of a waveform. She looked at its tail and saw the same motion. It was swimming to the stars.
Through dense cloud cover, the creature angelically flew alongside lightening strikes. Back on the surface, she saw the crater it had left behind. More than one and a half kilometres in length and a third of that length wide, it was a tiny gaping scratch in comparison to the natural meteor scarring.
Soon the wings rolled over into rings. A huge spike in magnetic fields disrupted her augments’ natural functions and the speed at which this entity propelled itself out of the atmosphere was phenomenal. Influxes of pain drove her to the floor as inhibitors went offline. Beyond the light she knew darkness sat in waiting, she was eager to confront it but not in this amount of agony. Signals in her nervous system erupted into drilling sensations and an ever increasing conflagration. Muscles and blood tubes sprouted from her skin as her body rejected the grafted materials.
The influxes of pain subsided as she had somehow connected with the Intrepid Discovery. She felt a release as her body stretched out into a consciousness that felt as vast as the universe itself. Burdens of memories past left her mind as she saw the language of quantum code stretching out into a glorious portrayal of angelic light, following the body of the ship in the physical world. Highways of information flowed into rivers and branching out into streams. Data values were beyond count while they flowed past her own projection, as an observer within a machine of quantum computers; this was something she thought she would never see. Last count put the values at Peta qubits and beyond.
The problem was that all the information within this ship flowed via quantum entanglement technology and it was done on such a grand scale. This amount of information is normally transmitted across the Feed at most once a day. Even then the information is then distributed into bytes to reduce the costs of producing such a large scale facilities to handle the information. During the analysis, she felt a jolt to her system, the awakening to the real world was painful. Her augments stopped complaining.
Through the hull of light she could see the two distinct floating vessels which she had tried to escape from. Further into the twinkling darkness, she saw more threatening shapes lingering. Malign intent was the only suggestion as the normal train route was further out of system. Though the light from inside the Intrepid Discovery did provide anomalies in her readings, her augmented eyes discerned the objects heading in their direction. Ghosts of nightmares past emerged from the desolate void to approach her and the Intrepid Discovery. As the flotilla of vessels neared, Sally saw the patrol ship turn to face the Intrepid Discovery.
It was so quick to reach Volg’s ship, she couldn’t believe that it took mere seconds to be within reach the old ruin. Muzzle Flashes from the Sun Tzu’s solid core torpedo launcher signified a first stage attack upon the entity. Thrown at such velocities, the impact should have torn the Intrepid Discovery apart, however the impact only shook the vessel and the projectile was slowly being devoured by the hull. The fluidic nature of the hull absorbed and dissipated the impact, reducing the shudder of from the collision with the weapon.
Another impact and another shell was being deconstructed by the hungry cells forming the body of the ship. Sally witnessed no obvious response until the patrol ship’s body glowed red and warped until it suffered an explosive decompression. Not just one deck was seared, many decks within had taken severe thermal damage. Bodies floated out into the darkness of space, rigid and frozen from the extreme cold until shards of literal red hot debris collided to shatter their remains. The viewing was hard to reel away from and to watch. Carnage and the serenity at conflict as the Intrepid Discovery lunged toward Volg’s ship. Emerging from the head of the ship, six huge tendrils speared forth to grab the wrecked relic. Like a child grabbing a toy, the Intrepid Discovery snatched the vessel from the custody of the patrol ship.
Swimming angelically, the ship headed back to the surface of the planet. Through one of the tendrils, she saw an object get sucked toward her. Its shape was vaguely human and as it approached through the tubing of the ship Sallyn anticipated the identity. Surprisingly things had gone according to her predictions, thrown out of the guts of the ship was Volg.
“What is this place?”
“You are inside the Intrepid Discovery!”
“The Rebel was right? He was right!” Volg soon burst into tears and giggles.
“Who was right?”
“The leader of the Augment rebellion, he mentioned gods of light swimming through the universe.”
Grumbling and screeching erupted throughout the body of the Intrepid Discovery. Sallyn looked towards the head of the leviathan and saw the crowning dawn of the star’s stunning gaze.
“Can you feel that? Something’s moving beneath my feet. It’s cold. Why can’t I move?”
Glancing over to the man wearing Volg as his skin, Sally saw metal shell being constructed around him. She looked down to see the same happening to her.
“It is for your protection that we do this. You are not yet ready to fully understand our purpose.”
Calm and calculated breaths controlled her emotions and brought forth a poignant memory. The last memory of her true childhood. As the chaos of the destruction had settled the world was silent for days on end, while she was alone she sobbed and called for her parents. Once the hand punched through that wall, Sally clambered through the room to grab it, she blabbered and made incoherent sentences to her saviour about how the chaos began. She heard muffled voices that directed her to a doorway of light.
The background light from outside the ship dimmed over her closed eyes and darkness once again became a nemesis to her. This time she had conquered her nemesis but resented the entity trapping her there. Dull thuds and muffled noises echoed through the shell and definite jolt of an ejection method let her know that she was cast out of the heavenly body and back to the hell of the Consortium. She slept soundly in the darkness, feeling the drifting nature of a body in motion.
Chills and breezess awoke her to a blinding white sterile light. It was an abattoir of emotions and memories, as cold hearted machines robotically manoeuvred over her body. She was naked and cold all over as neuro-inhibitors stooped all functions and feelings. Struggling to make any discernable sound, she did her best to reactivate the larynx region. “Am I going to be terminated?”
“Amber Sallyn, you are to be memory wiped. Your body will be redistributed to suit a function that will not cause relapse.” A Cyborg coldly said, it and its assistant were grotesque fusions of men and machine that studied her like she would have studied a fossil. The assistant held her tendril arm with extreme curiosity and then detached it from her arm to replace it with something that resembled a human hand. She should have been screaming in pain but realised the inhibitors stopped all pain responses. Two mechanical arms headed to her chest region readying syringes and chemicals. They descended into a region she couldn’t quite see, until the chemicals flooded that region and soon saw her humble breasts expand.
“Am I going to be a pleasure slave?”
“That is not for us to disclose. Your former identity and your future identity are of no concern, as the replacement personality will not care or remember.” It was so calm the way they said it that she felt emotionally at ease.
Two white spherical objects lay just within view either side of her head and she could tell the induced memory loss would begin. As the charge in the panels built up she took one last breath and thought of the song from the Intrepid Discovery. “Goodbye Sally Burrows.” Next came the real pain.
*****
Thank you for reading my work, if you have any comments/suggestions please say what you liked or disliked about this short. Would it be worth expanding this universe’s fiction?
If you would like to see some more of my work please read The Fall of the Illistarta.